


Running Hearts

by NoDecaff4Me



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternative Universe - No Island, Attempt at Humor, Conspiracy, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Private Investigators, Running Away, maybe a little bit of angst, things are complicated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-10-10 10:55:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10436118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoDecaff4Me/pseuds/NoDecaff4Me
Summary: Verdant Inc. was a small but very successful private investigation business Oliver Queen and John Diggle had started two years ago. They were well known to be the best when it came finding and protecting people without drawing too much unneeded public attention. So when one day a man named Noah Kuttler asked them to find his daughter, Felicity Smoak, who had gone missing after stealing highly confidential data from his company it just seemed like an everyday job.None of them could possibly know how that case was about to change their lives.





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys!  
> This is a new story I have been working on for a little while now and I just couldn't wait to let you see the first chapter and to hear what you think of it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!  
> This is a new story I have been working on for a little while now and I just couldn't wait to let you see the first chapter and to hear what you think of it!  
> I have the whole story planned out and will continue to work on it - BUT the next update might take a while because I still have to finish at least one of the other stories. 
> 
> Please let me hear what you think! THANK YOU!

                                                     

 

 

Hours had gotten late again for Felicity Smoak that day, but after working as an executive in her father’s company for the last few years had her get used to those. Also, she really liked what she was doing so complaining was really the last thing on her mind.

Especially because that day was one of those rare days where she could hide and lock herself inside the quiet little lair she had carefully created for herself over the years. Ok - maybe it wasn’t a lair per se. It wasn’t dingy or cold nor was it located in a dimly lit basement underneath a secret location and she wasn’t a comic book vigilante trying to save theta day every night.

It was more like a hideout, but it was her safe place nonetheless. Somewhere no one was judging heritage for her quirks or her taste in workplace decor. It was a place where she wasn’t forced into the role of the CEO’s daughter. More importantly, no one except for a small handful of people would disturb her when she was ‘in the zone’, which basically was just her fingers flying over two keyboards almost simultaneously building new experimental algorithms depending on the threats their company’s clients were facing and to meet whatever security requirements were needed.

Today was one of those rare days she cherished so of course she had totally forgotten about everyone and anything shortly after she had started her babies and got to work. So it didn’t even surprise her that, by the time she looked up from her monitors the office outside was dark and everyone had already went home.

There had been a green sticky note hanging in the middle of the glass door to her lab saying

“ _Hello my Overlord._

_Dinner’s at your desk. Reheat in your microwave as per instructions. Paul told me to tell you to eat the greens too this time._

_XO Curtis_ ”

That made her smile. She really had picked her second in command right. Not only was he one of the brightest minds she’d ever came across in all her time in the business, but he and his husband had quickly became her family and home cooked meals with exact reheating instructions were only one reason why she’d loved these two men as much as she did.

Felicity didn’t even bother with turning on the lights when she got home, the surrounding buildings providing enough lighting she could move around without stumbling on any of the sparse furniture.

Home nowadays meant a very spacious 2 bedroom loft in Uptown Starling City. Her father had insisted on her moving into a secure building upon their relocation from Central City a year ago. She hadn’t had any arguments to challenge him on this, so she did as her father had wished; although she really didn’t see the point nor cared about all the amenities the place offered. For her it was a place to crash and shower. Well - the good built-in coffee machine also helped, but other than that? It was as much of a home as her father’s house had been in the past.

The clock above her painfully unused stove told her that it was well past 10 pm when she turned around the corner into the kitchen area. Felicity had just put the tupperware with the neatly prepared chicken casserole and plain white rice into her microwave and, as per instructions, set the timer to 3 minutes when she heard a beeping noise coming from her purse. She frowned as she padded over to her sofa, immediately pulling the device out of her purse and tapped on the screen.

It was a system alarm she had installed for when someone would use her testing environment outside of business hours. Three taps later she could see the live footage of her lab and her frown became deeper. Felicity could see her father sitting down in front of the monitors. That alone wasn’t the really unusual thing although she wondered when the last time was that he had stepped a foot inside of it without her being present.

The thing that got her really curious was the fact that her father wasn’t alone. He was accompanied by a man. Switching the camera angle she could see the person standing behind her father and her blood ran cold. She would recognize this ice cold penetrating pair of eyes everywhere out of thousands of others and nothing good could come with them.

“Darhk…” the word alone after all those years still had her hackles raising and her whole body shuddered.

She could still remember the first time she had looked into those eyes, even though it was years ago. Maybe the second or third week after she had started to work for her father’s company in Central City, but she could still feel the shiver that had ran down her spine the moment those eyes had caught sight of her. She could still hear his voice, the calm and almost emotionless tone in which he spoke had scared her. But more than anything else it was her father’s behavior that really had her concerned. He had seemed petrified by the man for whatever reason but back then she’d just stored it away in the back of her mind, telling herself that she might just be over analyzing things.

She watched the security footage a little bit longer until something caught her eye and another second later a second shrilling alarm went off not only on her tablet but also on her phone and home network.

 “No!” she gasped “no no no…”

Felicity didn’t want to believe her own eyes when she watched her father over the camera feed and yet there he was, showing her well-kept secret to this man. It had been the one thing she and her father had agreed on when she decided to join his company. It had been her ONE request then and he had sworn to keep it. She never asked anything from him before or since, and now she was watching him break that one promise he had made and betraying her trust – again.

She knew that he couldn’t do anything harmful with it just yet.

Not without her anyway.

She had made sure of that. Nobody but her had the necessary access rights to do anything with it other than access the code and run it in the secure testing area in her lab but that didn’t matter right in that moment. Right then and there she knew she had to do something before her father found a way to get further access to it or, even worse, give in the hand of a man like Damien Darhk.

Her mind had already started to go into overdrive as she watched the two men walk out of her lab. The tears had started to run down over both her cheeks and there was nothing she could do to stop them. They were tears of betrayal and anger. God she was angry! Angry at her father, at what she’d just witnessed but most of all she was frustrated with herself for ever trusting that man again.

She should have known better than that and yet she had. Just like that. At the time, she had been so glad to have him back when she had really needed him after her mother’s death. So relieved at the feeling of not being completely alone in the world. Felicity had always been exceptionally independent for her age. She had to be if she wanted to excel at MIT and she did, but she always knew that she owed large parts of that independence to her mother. It had just been them two for the better part of her life and losing that one single most important person in her life had almost made her lose ground.

He was there to catch her and Felicity hadn’t asked for any reasons beyond the obvious. Maybe she had wanted to turn a blind eye? He was her father after all and the fact that he had been there to take care of her was enough for her at that moment, even though he hadn’t been around for the last few years after he had left them without so much of an explanation.

 That relieved feeling quickly became something else entirely in the weeks and months that had followed her mother’s death. She soon had to realize that the father she once knew - or believed to remember - wasn’t anything like the man that took her in.

Noah Kuttler was nothing like the warm and caring man she had remembered from her childhood. The father that once had told her she could be an astronaut if she just really believed in herself was long gone, but then again she no longer wanted to travel to Mars either. He pushed and encouraged her to work even harder than she had before and she in return really enjoyed that she had someone standing behind her. Someone who understood what she was talking about when she came home on holidays.

Looking back now though she couldn’t help but wonder if she only ever just served his own purposes. Sure, she had attended the school of her dreams and studied what she’d loved but other than that? It suddenly felt like all she had done since graduating from MIT had been planned out and she was her father’s willing stooge and too stupid to see it.

She brushed away the tears and took a stuttering breath to as she forced herself to stand up knowing she had to do something. And it had to be done now before either her father or Darhk got the chance to move any further, but she also knew that just rushing into the offices and destroy her code wasn’t the solution.

She needed a plan and she needed it fast.

After what had felt like hours she found herself packed and ready to go after she had - kinda - figured out her first few moves Everything else she would have to make up as she went along.

Her first step was to make sure that whatever her father and Darhk had been up to would be nipped in the bud. Suddenly her comfortable and planned out life seemed to be the least she had to worry about in that moment.

If they really intended to use her virus and she was the key to get to it, she had to get as far away from this place and her father as she possibly could. But she also knew if she wanted to do that she needed more time. Time was something she didn’t have right now, but she knew exactly the place she could go where no one would be looking for her. That would give her enough time to plan her next moves. Hopefully.

Felicity started to move around her apartment on autopilot as she started to collect all her precious belongings. She placed all of them on her bed keeping in mind that she needed to pack light if she wanted to be able to move quickly. In the end there was one duffle bag and her purse sitting at the foot of her bed as she took a last look around the room.

 Her eyes fell on a little porcelain figure of a ballerina her mother had once bought her and hanging from the lifted arm was a necklace she hadn’t worn in years. It was a hamsa - delicately manufactured out of silver with a round jade stone in the middle - it was supposed to be a sign of luck and good fortune. It was her mom’s gift for her bat mitzvah.

Felicity looked at the token with teary eyes. She had taken it off the day her mother had died. It had been the day she stopped believing in things like good luck mojos because obviously these things didn’t mean anything, but if there was anything she could use right now was luck and a little bit of her mom on her journey into the unknown.

She pulled the silver chain over her head and placed the pendent under her shirt close to her heart.

Felicity took one last look around her apartment before she turned out the lights. She closed the door behind her and put the key in an addressed envelope and tucked it safely inside her jacket pocket. She knew she wouldn’t be seeing any part of her ‘normal’ life in a while.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**_One week later, Starling City_ **

Oliver stepped through the front door of Verdant on this dreary Wednesday morning. Verdant was a small but very successful private eye and personal protection company he had founded together with his best friend John Diggle almost three years ago. He had just finished a security job down in Hub City and had returned about 5 hours ago.

He hated those types of jobs, even though they usually paid really good money. Mostly because they were boring as hell almost all the time, but and also because the people that hired them didn’t really need protection. They just wanted to look more important than they really were. The last job had just been that. Boring and tedious, even more so as he had to tell his female client the difference between personal protection and escort service.

Needless to say; he was more than just happy to be back in the office today and ready for another job. And also the reason he had bought 3 large coffees and bagels on his way over.

He walked past the front desk and handed Roy his coffee without giving the young man too much attention. He loved the boy, but he really needed to have at least 3 sips of his own coffee before he could handle that kind of nervous energy after only 3 hours of sleep. Which explained why he completely ignored his words as he stepped through the door to the back of their offices.

A groan immediately escaped his throat as he stopped dead in his tracks and looked through the glass windows into their meeting room where he could see John Diggle sitting opposite three people and he knew one of them by only looking at the back of her head.

“What is she doing here?” Oliver bit out through gritted teeth as his eyes zoned in on his partner who was looking right back at him through the windows of the conference room with a tight smile on his face. Dig obviously knew how he would react to her presence. There better be a very good explanation for bringing ‘them’ back into their lives.

It wasn’t that Oliver didn’t like that woman. He really did and for quite some time he had considered her family, in a way he still did, but he still wanted to have no part in her agency. Not after what had happened in Afghanistan. Especially after he found out what kind of person her boss was and to what lengths they were willing to go to get what they wanted.

He had almost died that day and he had been one of the lucky ones. Unlike 78 other people, men, women, girls, soldiers, that had died in that burning school building.

“I tried to warn you, boss.” Roy said in a surrendering gesture. “She called yesterday. Said it was urgent.”

Oliver was moving towards the door and opened it before Roy could even finish his explanation. However, just before he could enter the meeting room John stepped in his way, closing the door behind him.

“Good Morning.” John greeted him in a calm tone and a knowing look on his face, obviously prepared for the argument his partner was about to start with him over the presence of the woman sitting in the meeting room.

“It was until a few seconds ago.” Oliver shot back “Care to explain why she’s here? I thought we agr…”

“Agreed that we’d never get involved in any of ARGUS’ affairs again. Yes, Oliver, we did. I was there too, remember?” Diggle responded in his ever so calm tone.

Of course he remembered. He’d give anything to forget those days of their involvement with them!

“Why is she here then?” Oliver asked impatiently, not even trying to lower his voice and unwilling to let the argument drop right away.

“SHE is not our client.” Dig pointed to the woman who still sat there with her back to them “the man beside her is. His name is Noah Kuttler and judging by what I just heard, he has a huge problem that soon could get a lot bigger. Just listen to him and then we’ll decide if we take the job.” Dig waited for Oliver to give his silent approval before he opened the door for Oliver to step in.

After a short introduction everyone got seated again and Oliver let his eyes roam over the faces of the three people on the opposite side of the table. He knew Lyla already, so his interest was more with the two men, or more precisely with the younger one, Curtis Holt. He seemed very uncomfortable being there.

“Ok, Mister Kuttler. Why don’t you tell us something about your daughter.”

“My daughter started to work for my company four years ago, just she graduated MIT. She is highly skilled and intelligent, a tech savant. She built her first computer by the time she was seven years old and writes complex program codes like other people write in their diary…”

Oliver listened as Kuttler started to describe his daughter, but there was something in the man’s tone that didn’t sit right with him. It was as if someone recited another person’s resume, not a father who talked about his own child.

He brushed that aside, instead focusing on the important information he clearly saw the man did not want to share with them.

“So, what you are saying is your daughter just left out of the blue. She just packed her bags and left one night a week ago?” Oliver asked as he looked into the other man’s eyes.

“Yes.” The man on the other side of the table nodded his agreement with Oliver’s statement.

Oliver looked over to Curtis for a short moment before he returned them to the man speaking. The young man sat stiff in his chair, his eyes fixed on his own hands folded on the table.

“Why?” Oliver pushed and when he didn’t get an immediate answer he pushed further.

“I mean, there has to be a reason for this. What could have prompted this reaction from her? People always do things for a reason. No one just leaves their whole life behind for no reason at all. Why did she leave?”

“I… I…. I really have no idea.”

Looking over to Dig he could see his partner shared his impression of that statement. The man was lying.

“Ok. So why not just going to the police?” Dig asked.

“What?” Kuttler’s brows furrowed as he his look skipped back and forth between Oliver and Diggle.

“Why didn’t you just go to the police and file a missing person’s report? Why didn’t you report your daughter missing if there is no obvious reason for her disappearance? Let the police do their job.” Oliver offered as an opportunity.

“You don’t understand, Mister Queen. My daughter didn’t just leave. She also took property of my company with her along with her, highly confidential government information. If my customers were to get aware of this, my company would be out of business before the end of the day!” Kuttler countered in a heated voice.

“She might appear as the sweet little angel, but she is capable of destroying companies or governments with only one click if she wants. It wouldn’t be the first time she got involved with the wrong people.

Oliver watched the man on the other side of the table carefully as he got more agitated by the minute. Something was definitely off with this guy, he could feel it.

“For all I know she rekindled with this lowlife of a boyfriend she had back in college. She always had these anarchic tendencies. They called themselves ‘Hacktivists’…” Kuttler continued, emphasizing on the last word by making quotation marks with his finger “and with what she took from my company she could send our country back into the dark ages in a second’s time.”

“You don’t believe Ms Smoak’s disappearance has anything to do with a man, Mister Holt?” Dig asked the younger man who clearly seemed uncomfortable with the situation.

“No, Sir. I don’t.”

“How can you be so sure?” Dig asked further.

“Ummm - well. Her boyfriend from college is dead.” Curtis coughed slightly as he shot an insecure look over to his boss who had narrowed his eyes at him “he… Well he hung himself in prison.”

Dig hummed in understanding as he noted something down on the paper in front of him before he continued.

“How was it to work with Miss Smoak, Mister Holt?” Dig asked the young man who until then had been sitting quietly at the table.

Curtis looked up. Surprised he was being addressed at all it seemed.

“Ummm - well, she’s great. Felicity is a great boss. We worked together since the day I started my work with the company. She works really hard. Maybe even harder than what was good for her? My husband and I always tell her to ease up a little when it gets out of hand again…” Curtis shrugged “but she usually just tells us that she does it because she really loves her work. Which she does - and she is one of the most brilliant and caring people I have ever met. She’s...”

“I don’t know how any of this information will help in getting my daughter back.” Kuttler cut in.

“I understand, Mister Kuttler. I also do know how to do my job… I just somehow try to find out why your daughter would just leave one night out of the blue and so far nothing explains that. Also - while we’re at it - it also doesn’t explain why a representative of ARGUS is sitting right beside you.” Oliver raised his eyebrows in challenge as he looked over to the woman sitting beside Noah Kuttler.

“The data Miss Smoak stole from Kuttler Inc. included some highly confidential information from ARGUS and we have a strong interest in getting that data back without drawing any attention. That’s why I thought of you. You are good with that.”

“We still won’t work for your organization, Lyla. I told you that before. If that’s all…” Oliver pushed back his chair back and stood up.

“Please, Mister Queen.” Noah Kuttler stood up too “All I am asking of you is you to find my daughter and bring her back, before anything can happen.”

Oliver looked at him for a few moments. He could see the cold demeanor of the man change into what he could only identify as fear. The man that stood before him was afraid, but Oliver could not shake the feeling that it wasn’t his daughter’s life he was worried for.

Kuttler obviously wasn’t telling them the whole story and he didn’t feel comfortable acting without having a clear picture of a situation and nothing good ever came with half-truths.

All he knew for sure was no one ever just left their home, their whole life behind and just disappeared for no reason. He of all people should know that. Also; There was more to it, there always was. Especially if a secret government agency like ARGUS was involved - he had to know that too.

Checking back with his Dig, Oliver waited for his reaction that came a few moments later in the form of a firm nod. “Ok. We’ll get your daughter back.”

With that the meeting was over and Oliver left the meeting room, leaving Diggle to take care of the rest

Moving to the front desk he looked over to their young associate “got everything on tape?”

Harper nodded “Sounds like an easy hide and seek 101. I mean - how hard can it be, right?” Roy asked lightheartedly “sounds like she’s just a geek who ran away from home. It’s not like she’s Jason Bourne.”

Oliver looked incredulously at the young man, but before he could say anything Dig walked past him and slapped Roy on the back of his head.

“You just had to jinx that whole thing Harper, didn’t you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what did you think? Let me know and leave a little feedback (and Kudos of course…)  
> Also you can find me on Twitter @NoDecaff4Me. Come say hi! Drop me a note - I’d love to hear from you.


	2. The Catch - Sort of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver, Diggle and Roy are unsuccessfully trying to get a hold on their target, while Felicity decides to move things forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so so much for all your comments and kudos on the first chapter! I was overwhelmed by all the positive feedback I received from you guys! You are the best. :)

 

“I’m just worried for you, Bug.” the older woman said as she looked over to Felicity from the front porch where she sat on a comfortable rocking chair.

Felicity sighed as she shoved her bag onto the backseat of the old sedan that stood in the driveway of the small bungalow a little outside of Phoenix. She turned around and walked back to the house. “I know Baba.” she sat down beside the woman and looked at her with an uncertain smile on her lips.

If she had any choice she’d be staying longer and make up for lost time. She hadn’t seen her or her husband in such a long time. They had been like a second family for her for more than ten years when she was a child.

Barbara and Ken Belson, for almost half of her life, had been more than just the good neighbors everyone would be lucky to have. They had been like a second family for her. She had spent every afternoon and evening with them on days her mother had to work through the day and after her father had disappeared from one day to the other they were the ones to keep an eye out for her whenever her mother had to work late shifts as well. They were there every step of her way. On the day of her high school graduation as well as every chance they got to visit her at MIT. They were there for her first heartbreak, her first detention. They were always there when she needed an open ear and let her be if she didn’t want to talk.

It was only her mother’s accident that the contact broke - because of her. When she drowned herself in her studies and after that her work she shut out everything that reminded her of her mom. She just couldn’t handle the memories that came with talking to them.

That was why Felicity was hesitant at first to ask for their help. She felt guilty for only contacting them now that she needed somewhere safe to hide, but that moment only lasted until the door she was knocking on flew open and she found herself in the warm embrace of the woman she now sat beside.

“It’s just something I need to do.” she took the woman’s hand in her own “Trust me Baba. When this is all over I will come back and you can finally teach me how to cook your famous Boeuf Stroganoff.”

“Maybe we should start with something more basic.” the older woman suggested with a warm smile.

 “I think that’s a good call.” Felicity chuckled as she remembered how her first attempt at pancake making went when she was eleven “I wouldn’t want to burn your house down just by trying to boil water.”

“I just don’t get why you can’t go to the police with what that Shmock did. I might not get all that fancy techy stuff, but why can’t you let them deal with him?” Barbara Belson stressed again.

They had this conversation more than once over the last few weeks but Felicity had been certain from the start that a man like Damien Darhk was not someone that could be handled with by simple police work.

She had contemplated that idea at first, but the more she studied the files she had copied from her father’s separate server that night the more certain she was that this situation or more specifically a man like Damien Darhk was not something that could be handled by simple police work.

She was even more sure of that since no arrest warrant had been issued against her so far. The fact alone that neither the police nor the FBI were looking for her and that told her all she had to know. No one was interested in making this whole thing a matter of public interest.

Instead some private eyes were looking for her and had been following her carefully constructed credit card trail. A, thanks to her the little trojan she had planted and their poor imitation of a firewall, very short while later she had the confirmation she needed. Her dad had hired them.

Felicity knew that her feint would buy her a little time. She could only hope it would be enough for her to find what her father and Darhk were up to.

“Baba.” Felicity sighed in defeat.

“Barbara.” the warm voice of Ken saved Felicity from another futile attempt to explain her current situation as he stepped out of the house onto the veranda “let our Bug do what she needs to do, Honey…” he gave his wife’s shoulder a reaffirming squeeze as he looked over to Felicity “just make sure you make it back to us eventually.”

That was her cue to leave. As much as she hated to leave them again already she knew she had to. She had to set things right before they got a chance to get out of hand.

Felicity stood up and gave her foster parents a tight hug before she finally stepped away and got into her car.

There was one more thing she had to do before she faced the inevitable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 “Just remind me…” Dig said gruffly as he sat back down “why have you let your brother in law live after he jinxed that whole mission?”

 It had been a month. Four weeks of sitting in a car, sleeping in cheap motels rooms in very uncomfortable beds and eating whatever the closest diner supplied for breakfast or dinner since they agreed to take on the Smoak Case. A textbook case that just seemed to be too easy to be true. And there they were on their 31th day on their mission that somehow had turned into a scavenger hunt across several states.

“I think he’s already punished enough with all the pointless footwork you had him do these past few weeks.”

Oliver couldn’t blame the man for feeling on edge. They all did.

They all felt frustrated and their youngest member of the team quickly came to regret his first, and very incorrect, verdict on this case. Roy had put a lot of effort into finding any clues on their targets whereabouts. It was only a while later that all of them finally came to the conclusion that unlike others, the woman they were looking for wasn’t trying to hide her traces but planted them like breadcrumbs for them to find.

That’s how they ended up in that diner. It was a little way down from the strip just across the street from their motel. It clearly had seen better days, but the owner was a nice older lady with Italian roots who actually not only knew her way around a proper meal but also knew how to brew good coffee.

They came to the one place they knew their client’s daughter had avoided the past few years but had the most history with even though no one could tell them if she still had any connection to the place.

If there was something becoming painfully clear in the first days after they took on the case it was that the man who had begged them to get his daughter back knew next to nothing about his child and even though they quickly noticed how close she and Curtis Holt had been there wasn’t that much he could tell them about her past. Her past certainly wasn’t something she liked to talk about with anyone.

“She’s bound to make a mistake.” Oliver responded in a calm voice as he looked out the window of the diner they currently sat in “They all do eventually.”

To say that talking to that manmade Oliver frustrated would be an understatement. He just couldn’t understand how little a father could know about his child. His father and mother surely hadn’t been the text book example of devoted parents, but at least he knew they’d always cared about him and his sister even though they not always chose the best way of showing that.

The more time he had spent on the case, and the more he learned about their client, the more curious he got about their case subject. He had seen pictures of her and heard stories about her from Curtis. Her employees without any exception seemed to love and admire her, and it really made him wonder what had happened that she would just leave this life behind. There had to be more to the story.

Oliver took another sip from his coffee while he moved a hash brown from one side of his plate to the other with his fork. He kept thinking about a way they could finally find her.

The only problem was that they hadn’t had even the tiniest idea where to start with their search or where to look for her except for the places her father told them about from her childhood.

“Look, I get it, Oliver. “ Dig sighed “I know why you love these missions so much and I totally understand your need to get away every now and then... But it’s been a month and frankly I didn’t survive two deserts to get stranded in a third one.”

Oliver looked at his best friend with an unmistakable look as he took another sip of the surprisingly good coffee. This was not the time to discuss his well-known family issues even more so since he was sure that his partner was holding something back from him.

“Hmmmm…” he sat his cup down on the table. His eyes still fixed on his opposite “and your need to get back home doesn’t by any chance have something to with the fact that you are sleeping with your ex-wife again?”

Dig looked at him for a long time over the rim of his cup of coffee before his eyes caught sight of something else.

“You know I’m going to kick your ass for that comment, Queen…” he replied as he stood up without taking his eyes from the thing he was watching in Oliver’s back “but right now I feel like taking a look at those pies over at the counter.”

He watched his partner walk over to the counter out of the corner of his eye, but he could not see her, he could only hear a young female’s voice, which he assumed to be her, starting to talk - or more ramble.

“You definitely should have a slice of Nancy’s apple pie. You don’t know how real apple pie tastes before you had a bite of this. It’s addictive… Well - not like drugs - you know? Although I wouldn’t know about that since I never tried any - at least not knowingly, but there was this one time in colleg…” Felicity groaned loudly “sorry... Horrible brain-to-mouth filter there… anyway! trust me. You won’t regret it.”

Oliver listened intently as the young woman at the counter seemed to babble herself into a hole of embarrassment and he couldn’t help but grin into his coffee mug as thoughts of his sister ran through his mind.

Thea used to talk just as fast and unfiltered when she was young and more carefree. She never gave two thoughts about what others thought of her and always stayed true to herself, no matter the consequences.

But Oliver had to learn quickly that the little quirky girl was long gone when he finally got home. His little sister had grown up so much that he almost didn’t recognize her.

His heart still hurt when he thought about it. So much had happened in the last few years and he wasn’t there for her and not a day had passed he didn’t wish he could just turn back time a few years and prevent all of that to ever happen to her.

“That’s some fine pie alright.” Dig smiled over to the counter as he sat back down in their booth just before giving Oliver a thumb up, pulling him out of his thoughts.

It was her alright.

They had been in similar situations many times before. Meeting a target they had been looking for wasn’t something new to him, and Oliver always had a pretty good picture in his head about how that person would be or acted. He usually had these people figured out pretty clearly by the time they would get a hold on them. This time though, without even looking at her she was nothing like he’d imagined her.

From what he had read about her she was what people would call a certified genius. On top of her classes since junior high and graduated high school at an age his only concern was how to get into the next girl’s pants or how to crash the next party with Tommy.

She, however, had left home and moved across the country on her own at only 16 years old to attend one of the most high profile and prestigious universities in the world to - three years later - graduate with two masters in her pocket and a bright career in front of her.

And then there was her father. Oliver had decided the moment he shook his hand that he didn’t like the man. He always had his differences with his parents, but at least he knew that they had always done their best to protect him from his own mistakes - for better or worse. Noah Kuttler, however, didn’t have a single parental bone in his body. It was clear that he more cared for his company’s reputation than for his daughter’s well-being.

Normally Oliver had no problem with collecting and processing all information on a case. This one, for some reason, left him with more questions the more he learned about her.

It wasn’t the first time Oliver had asked himself how someone who had walked through life as ambitious and straightforward like her could end up stealing not only confidential company data but also classified government information and make a run for it. He hadn’t caught a glimpse of her yet but her voice made him even more curious as he listened to her chatting with the elderly lady who ran that place like they were old friends.

“You should really get a slice of one of those pies, man.” Dig looked at him as he shoved another piece into his mouth, reading Oliver’s thoughts like the everyday newspaper.

He nodded his head in agreement. Maybe he should get a piece of pie for himself. He really wanted to take a look for himself - at the pies...

Oliver moved quickly. He stood up, turned around and with only two long strides he was standing in front of the display at the bar counter. He watched her talk animatedly to the owner.

He turned around to order a slice of pie for himself the moment Felicity turned around and stood up from her bar stool. Before he knew what happened they both bumped right into each other and Felicity would have stumbled backwards if it wasn’t for Oliver’s hands on her shoulders to steady her.

“Wow! You’re really hard.” she looked up to him and he could see her cheeks turning beet red.

“I meant your chest. Your chest is really…Not that I think the rest of you isn’t…” Felicity’s eyes got bigger with every word that tumbled out of her mouth.

Oliver couldn’t hold back a snort when he looked down at her and she looked back at him like a deer caught by headlights.

“Are you ok?” he asked in all honesty as he smiled down at her, trying hard to hold back the laugh that threatened to escape him at the sight of her. He looked into her eyes. Her very bright blue eyes he thought as he continued to stare at her.

“What? Yes. I’m ok.” Felicity cleared her throat and broke the awkward silence.

He only then realized he still had his hands on her shoulders and let go immediately as she took two steps back.

“Yeah - well… I will just pretend that didn’t just happen and be on my way to the ladies room. Like I originally intended before you decided to play wall and stand in my way.” she poked her forefinger at him and before Oliver could even respond or react she had moved around him and disappeared in the small alley that lead to the bathrooms as his eyes followed her.

“So. You also wanted a slice of the apple pie, son?” Oliver’s gaze snapped back to the older woman behind the counter who looked at him with an all too amused face.

_What had just happened?_

 “Umm - no. I’ll take one of the raspberry lime muffins.” He looked from the older lady to the  layout of pastries and walked back over to Diggle with the plate in his hand.

“What the hell was that?” Diggle looked at him with a mix of amusement and confusion.

“What was what?” Oliver shrugged his shoulders as he tried to evade what he knew his friend meant. He just didn’t have an explanation!

“So.” Dig ignored his partner’s flippant tone “you are saying that you in fact DID notice that she grabbed her bag and most likely took the backdoor exit and is gone by now, right?”

Oliver’s head snapped around to look over to counter.

_DAMNIT!_ Of course he hadn’t! What the hell was wrong with him?

“Damnit!” Oliver hissed.

“Relax.” Dig snickered while he pulled out a few bills from his wallet and moved over to the bar counter to pay for their dinner “Roy has her car tagged. He’s waiting outside.”

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He had already expected her to disappear under the cover of the starting darkness and give them another run for their money. Instead she just made her way out of the city a few miles out into the suburbs until they drove along a long wall of what Oliver could only assume was a cemetery and her car turned into the driveway.

Roy stopped their car a little bit down the road and turned-off the ignition.

“Why do you two smell like pastry?” Roy cut through the concentrated silence while Dig watched their target’s GPS signal move over the map on tablet display and Oliver grabbed a flashlight and a taser out of the trunk in the back of the car.

“Don’t tell me you two ate some of that delicious looking stuff while I was limited to crackers and beef jerky!”

“Her car’s stopped not far down the road.” Dig ignored the young man’s (rightful) accusation.

“I’ll go have a look. You follow in about 10 minutes unless I call for backup.” Oliver ignored him as well.

“You’ll get back your pastry privileges as soon as we have this woman. That’s what you get for cursing a mission, Harper!” he heard Dig growling at Roy through the open window as he got out of the car and made his way across the street into the cemetery.

He didn’t need to go far until he saw her car parked in the parking lot on the side of the street. Nighttime and the trees and gravestones giving him sufficient cover as he moved through the ground. The bright moon above being the only source of light besides the light posts along the street.

“Hi mom…” Oliver heard her voice coming from a few yards away. He froze as he watched the woman they had been hunting for weeks sitting down on the grass in front of a simple grave marker.

Oliver was about to turn around and give her the privacy a moment like that deserved when he heard her continue to talk. Instead he crouched behind the big marble headstone of what he assumed was a family grave.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come to visit sooner.” she whispered as she laid down a single pink flower on the ground “and I don’t have any excuse not to. I just… I couldn’t.”

He didn’t know why he kept listening when he knew exactly that this conversation deserved privacy. There was just something about the way she spoke that reminded him of his first visit to his parents’ grave after he had returned home and the constricting feeling in his chest with a mix of guilty conscience and absolute dread, because he knew once he’d stand in front of their graves it would be true.

He could hear her shaky intake of air before she continued “I buried myself in my studies and after that under tons of work so I wouldn’t have to think about how much I missed you... I miss you so much, mom.

“I am so sorry I wasn’t home that day like I should have been. I should have been there. But then you were gone… I should’ve been home that day and I am so so sorry I wasn’t.”

Oliver could see Felicity standing up and taking a steadying breath.

“I’m in trouble mom… Noah, he… he got involved with a man - he’s dangerous.” she shook her head as she looked down at the granite plate “I think I found a way to fix it but I’m scared…”

He moved away then and made his way back to the already waiting car and quietly got into the back seat.

“We should call our client. Tell him we’ve found her.” Dig said as they watched Felicity walk back to her car out of the distance.

“No. We wait.” Oliver said after a few moments of contemplation. He’d had a bad feeling about that whole thing from the start and the more he saw and heard he more and more got convinced that Kuttler had lied to them from the start.

“We should talk to her first. I want to hear her side of the story.”

“Oliver. That’s not how we…”

“I know, Dig. But we both know that Kuttler - if anything - didn’t tell us the whole story and from what I just heard she’s scared and I want to know why.”

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They followed Felicity back into the city and into a small sports bar away from the strip.

The three men moved to a table in the back half of the bar near the pool tables from where they had a perfect overview of the front and back doors and the bar counter where the young woman currently talked to the bartender.

“Two pitchers and an extra cheeseburger with fries for the young gentleman who had to sit outside in the car the whole evening.” a young waitress announced as she set down the glasses and plate on their table.

“We didn’t order that…” Oliver looked at her while Roy had already stuffed a good handful of fries into his mouth.

“I know.” a female voice spoke from behind Oliver and Dig.

“I did.” Felicity walked to the head of the table and smiled at the surprised faces as she sat down in the vacant chair.

Dig and Oliver shot up from their seats almost instantly while Roy was still too distracted by the giant one pound burger he was currently chewing on.

Felicity just smiled at them “Would you just relax, please? I’m not going to run if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

“Well, Miss Smoak, it’s a little hard to believe you, considering how hard you made it for us to find you in the first place.” Dig responded drily as he considered her with a scrutinizing glare.

Felicity only snickered as her eyes wandered from Diggle to Oliver “It’s really cute that you’d actually believe that it was you who found me.”

Oliver looked at her dumbfounded as Felicity grabbed a few of the fries from Roy’s plate “Please - I wanted you to find me. That’s why I lead you here.”

“And why would that be?” Oliver asked skeptically, sitting down in his chair again.

“Simple.” Felicity looked at Oliver and Diggle and took a sip of her beer “Because I need to talk to someone at ARGUS and I know you and Mister Diggle can help me with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what did you think? Let me know and leave a comment (and Kudos of course…)  
> Also you can find me on Twitter @NoDecaff4Me. Come say hi! Drop me a note - I’d love to hear from you.


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